


Sagittarian

by ignipes



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-03
Updated: 2006-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:05:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He slept inside now. The grounds around the castle were too barren to offer protection from the wind and snow, and he was not welcome in the forest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sagittarian

His steps echoed on the stones of the courtyard. The morning was cold and damp, overcast with heavy clouds. Firenze stood in the arched entrance to the courtyard and surveyed the grounds. Heavy mist draped the lake and the forest, drifting slowly amongst the barren trees and creeping along the ground in shifting, formless swirls.

He looked to the east, but he saw no sign of the rising sun. The sky had been hidden, day and night, for three days.

A flicker of motion at the edge of the forest caught his eye. He turned his head quickly, his hair whipping about his face, but the shadows beneath the trees were still.

"Oh -- Professor Firenze! Good morning."

The voice startled him; he looked over his shoulder. It was one of the students, a girl human wrapped in a heavy cloak and red-and-gold scarf.

"Good morning," he said in return, nodding politely and trying to recall her name. He looked at the letter clutched in her hand, then up at the tower of the owlery, which was surrounded by swooping owls returning from the night's hunt.

"Letter for my mum," she explained, gesturing with the letter. "She wants us to write twice a week, with everything that's going on. She worries."

Firenze replied absently, "There are dark signs." A derisive voice in his mind added, _Humans are too enamored of their own reflections to see the signs._ He looked down at the human child. _It is not your duty to instruct them in those things they have forgot._ "We do well to heed them."

She nodded slowly, her golden earrings shining in the dull morning light, and she shivered. "I know. I mean -- not like you do, I don't know that much, but I can tell that it's -- it's not good. Padma thinks I'm overreacting."

He hesitated, uncomfortable as always with the easy chatter of humans. "Midwinter is approaching," he said, gesturing toward the grounds. Dormant grass and patches of snow showed through the mist, and along the paths prints from hooves and feet had frozen into hard casts.

"It might snow," the girl said, holding out her hand as if to catch snowflakes that were not yet falling. There was an eagerness in her voice, the winter optimism of the very young, and he could see thoughts of playful afternoons and warm fires in her eyes.

He looked away quickly. Winter nights in the forest were long and cold and full of contrast: bitter air and warm breath mingling, black and palomino bodies huddled together, light and dark, restless and calm. The ancient, gnarled branches of the thicket would be wrapped around them like arms, and they would speak into the night discussing the stars and the stories, arguing and speculating, falling quiet when the wind broke icicles from the trees. _This is the season of the centaur. We should be galloping proudly, not shivering like colts!_ Winter nights in the forest were laughter and legends, unrestrained as the night air, clear as a field of new-fallen snow, breathless as a chase across an open meadow.

He slept inside now. The grounds around the castle were too barren to offer protection from the wind and snow, and he was not welcome in the forest. The headmaster and gamekeeper had opened the doors of the old stables, long unused and mostly forgotten, and their eyes held apologies they didn't speak. His hooves were muffled on the wooden floors by damp, pungent hay, and with every step he could hear the mocking echoes: _Have you no shame? Are you a common mule?_

He had no words to answer them this time, no angry shouts about evil and good.

The lines were drawn, the sides were chosen, and he slept inside. Like a common mule.

Firenze shook his head quickly. The girl looked up at him, puzzled, so he stilled himself and simply said, "The days grow darker, and the sky draws toward the centre."

She nodded as if she understood, and he felt a sudden pang of anger. Young and human and foolish, looking upon the waning of the days and the changing of the seasons with unseeing eyes, seeking to read the planets only to untangle foolish romantic notions, to ask favors of the stars and share secrets with the moon.

But when she spoke, her voice was solemn and quiet. "That's what it is, isn't it? It's all drawing toward the centre."

Firenze looked down at the girl and waited for her to continue.

"I mean...the newspapers, the rumours, they make it seems like everything is spreading out, but that's not what's happening. It's pulling together. Pulling toward..." She swallowed. "You-Know-Who."

He thought of a misty night in the forest and a terrified child clinging to his back. Firenze nodded. "It is."

"I--" The girl laughed a little. "Hermione says we should say his name, to show we aren't scared of him. I don't see how that would help, though."

Firenze replied, "Names have great power."

"But whose power?" Then she shrugged and laughed again, and held up the letter. "I had better go send this off and get back for breakfast. I'll see you in class tomorrow?"

He inclined his head politely. "Of course. Be well."

She waved as she hurried across the stone. "Bye, Professor."

He looked over the grounds again, listening to the sound of her footsteps fade from the courtyard. A few minutes later, a single owl swooped out of the tower, bearing south, its broad wings a black slash against the grey sky.

Beyond the stone of the courtyard, the ground was slick and crusted with ice. He took several careful steps toward the forest, scanning the edge of the trees. The mist was thinning as the morning marched forward, but beneath the trees the shadows were dark. He did not know if he saw a familiar shape watching from the gloom, black enough to seem no more than a shadow itself, or if his eyes were merely showing him what he wanted to see.

_A cause of great distress or annoyance._ How they had laughed, yearlings in the summer meadows, when they learned the truth of that. _Scourge, plague, curse, blight._ It had become a game, a chant, a riddle, a foolish song invented by foolish colts when the days were long and the stars were bright.

He knew what they would do to him if he dared venture into the forest again. He knew there would be no forgiveness, no relief in the angry dark eyes. The season of the centaur, with the map of the heavens spread overhead and the centre of the galaxy burning at its heart, was the season when the nights only grew longer.

Names have power, he had said to the girl, as if that was an answer for anything.

He turned back toward the castle.


End file.
